


Simple Math for the Price of Flowers

by Pinepickled



Series: In the Snowfields [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Babies, Fluff, Human Kyuubi | Nine-tails | Kurama, Minor Violence, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:55:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26926234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinepickled/pseuds/Pinepickled
Summary: Naruto and Sasuke are two little kids in a world that hates them, Kakashi is always late, and flowers cost a bit too much in Konoha.
Series: In the Snowfields [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952017
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	Simple Math for the Price of Flowers

Naruto stared on blankly as Iruka-sensei continued to explain the project. He felt strange, not angry or sad. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sasuke shifting with an annoyed expression on his face. Neither of them were happy about this.

It was supposed to be a way for them to learn a defining jutsu, something that would help them when they became genin, something that would make them stand out as ninja of Konoha. They were supposed to go up to a Jounin or a clan with a unique jutsu or a Jounin from a clan with a unique jutsu and ask them to teach you, and then you would then present to the class. The ninja who had volunteered for the program were all lined up in the back of the class, waiting patiently for Iruka-sensei to finish the explanation on restrictions. There was one glaring problem, however. 

There were 28 jounin and other such clan ninjas lined up on the wall. There were 30 students. 56 people were giving Naruto dirty looks, as though daring him to try and partner with one of the adult ninja. 1 person was glaring back at those 56 people. Iruka-sensei would be proud of the math Naruto was doing. 

Finally, Iruka-sensei finished his explanation and within seconds, the children were clambering over each other to get to the older ninjas, shoving others out of the way for their preferred adult. 28 students pounced on 28 ninja and 2 people stayed behind. Naruto heard Sasuke scoff. A voice in Naruto's head agreed with the sentiment.

The pairs began filtering out of the classroom, happy laughter and indulgent tones filling the air until they faded away, leaving 2 people and a voice in 1 person's head behind. Naruto figured that was enough math for that day, and turned to Sasuke. The blond almost turned away from his friend, seeing the dark hate and resentment radiating from the boy, but Sasuke's bitterness only rose when Naruto went to turn away. The Uchiha spoke first.

"So does Iruka-sensei expect us to pull a new jounin level jutsu out of nowhere?" He said, venom dripping from every word. Sasuke knew the reality of the situation, as did Naruto. Originally, there were supposed to be 29 ninja lined up on that wall, and one was sent away on an emergency mission. There were supposed to be 29 students going off with ninja today and 1 student with a voice in his head was supposed to be left behind. 1 teacher had fought to get 30 ninja in the classroom for the 30 students, but people stronger than the 1 teacher kept that from happening. Naruto didn't know how many people had kept that from happening. It was math that was beyond him. One thing always added up, however.

It was that there was no way Sasuke was going to rush over and snag a ninja when Naruto was very purposefully left with nothing. Sasuke was loving like that. Sasuke liked to piss off who knows how many higher ups like that. While Naruto was purposefully left with nothing, Sasuke was very purposefully given… nothing. Nothing but a ninja who could teach him things. No money. No clothes. No food. No safety. Bitterness began to rise in Naruto, and the voice in his head purred in satisfaction.

This is something you should be angry about, little fox, It soothed, sounding amused and sad at the same time. Naruto wasn't sure he should listen to voices in his head, but it wasn't like anyone else spoke to him. Sasuke looked up. Iruka-sensei had packed up his things and was approaching their desk.

"Just so you know… I am sorry. I would love to teach you some jutsu I know, but…" he trailed off, looking guilty. Naruto saw that look a lot. So did Sasuke. Neither of the two boys were particularly impressed. Naruto said his thanks anyway, and Sasuke didn't acknowledge at all. The dark haired boy simply held out a hand and led him out of the class.

Once they were out of hearing range of any ninja they could spot, Sasuke spoke.

"I'm gonna be fine, there are a bunch of old scrolls with Uchiha technique around the old compound, but what are you going to do?" Sasuke's voice had softened, worry lined prominent on the boy's face. Naruto could only shrug. His grades were in the gutter anyway. 

"Tch. If you're not going to do anything then stick with me. I'm gonna practice my fireball and just present that. We'll find you a seal or something." At the mention of a seal, the voice in his head rumbled.

That is a wonderful idea, Sasuke-kun. Naruto wouldn't have paid it any mind if Sasuke had not looked up in alarm. Before Naruto could ask, Sasuke shook his head in confusion and continued on. They walked further into the outskirts of Konoha, past the Nara compound, past the Hatake compound, past the poor shacks, and finally entered the original Uchiha compound. Mikoto-san always made a point to call this place the "original" compound, and the other one the "fake" compound. Mikoto-san was never quiet about her distaste for the move, and was never silent about why it had happened. Naruto wondered what would have happened if she was quiet. Somehow, the blond doubted that she would still be alive. 

Before they could venture further into the compound, Sasuke led them over to the shrine, nestled into the graveyard of the Uchiha. The atmosphere turned cooler, and a light purple mist crawled across the ground. A few of the graves lit on fire, Haka no Hi if Naruto remembered Fugaku's stories correctly. Many cats and kittens were lazing on the graves, one with its tail split down the middle. It was probably a bake-neko feeling a bit mischievous, thinking it could rob some food from the two orphans. Unluckily for the bake-neko, neither child had the food to take. 

The two boys knelt in the shrine and said a brief prayer before taking off. The moment they'd stepped out of the graveyard, the mist faded away and the Haka no Hi disappeared. More cats could be found scattered around the Uchiha compound, a few coming up to demand pets from the duo but otherwise they were left alone. A faint cawing could be heard in the distance, the cry of a murder of crows. Those birds were also Uchiha animals, but usually kept to themselves.

Finally, the two boys arrived at the clan head's house. It was nothing special, the only indicator being the words "clan head" scrawled on a bake-neko statue in front of the house. It is a running joke among the Uchiha, or at least it was. The two boys rushed inside, kicking off their shoes and bee-lining for the closet. There was no need to announce they were home, since no one was listening. 

Sasuke dug around the closet, taking out scrolls only to immediately shove them back in. One scroll in particular stood out, if only because the voice in his head perked up when they saw it.

That one! Take it, it is yours. It said. Naruto zeroed in on the scroll in question, a small thing stamped with a red spiral. Sasuke watched closely as Naruto picked it up, head tilted curiously. The blond opened it, expecting to see traditional Konoha seals, and was immediately baffled. Nothing that made up the seal made sense, yet was completely readable and easy to use at the same time. Naruto rubbed at his eyes, feeling a headache come on from the double onslaught. The voice in his head rumbled in amusement, entirely unhelpful. 

Naruto shrugged at Sasuke, rolling up the scroll and putting it in his pocket. Sasuke only shrugged back, resuming his raid of the closet.

~~~

A few moments later, they found themselves out of the village entirely. The chuunin at the gates had nearly stopped them, but Sasuke had simply flashed his scroll and walked on by. The boys both knew that the only reason they had been stopped at all was because Naruto was there. They also knew that there was definitely someone following them. There was always someone following them. After all, they had the hatred of the whole damn village between them. 

They finally settled down at the shore line, an island visible in the distance, humongous whirlpools scattered across the water. Sasuke immediately got to work, weaving signs and blowing fire over the water. It wasn't obvious what it was just yet, but Naruto was willing to bet by tomorrow he would have it mastered. The boy had his own scroll to study. 

He wandered a ways off from the heat wave Sasuke was giving off and opened the strange scroll. It wasn't written in any script Naruto knew, but there was something so familiar about the strange symbols. Suddenly, Naruto felt a huge amount of chakra begin to leak from his stomach, manifesting into a humanoid shape in front of him. Naruto took a few futile steps back, looking on in horrified curiosity.

The new chakra-person-thing in front of him had long, red hair, tied in a messy, low ponytail. He(?) was wearing an orange and red yukata, a strange pattern of spirals above the bow and some sort of tail pattern on the lower half. He had striking gold eyes, pupils in slits, surrounded by dark red makeup. The man grinned, revealing sharp fangs under black-painted lips.

"Hello, Naruto. It looks like you need help with that scroll." The man said, mischievous smile playing on his lips. Naruto hardened his face, trying his best to look intimidating.

"Who are you and why did you take my chakra?" The blond said, taking a battle stance. The man just laughed, and ruffled the boys hair.

"First of all, you use my chakra. Second of all, my name is Kurama. And you're never going to figure that scroll out without me. It's written in Uzushio script, or yokai script if you want to be picky." Naruto pouted, brows furrowed. He had no clue what the man- Kurama- was saying. Before he knew what was happening, Kurama snatched the scroll from his small hands and sat down.

"Okay, look. You see the spiral in the middle of the page? That's where you're gonna put your finger to activate the seal- it won't take much chakra from you. Can you guess why? I'll give you a hint. Look carefully at these designs that surround the spiral. What do they remind you of?" Naruto sat down next to Kurama and peered carefully at the designs. They sort of looked like flowers, pretty little things he saw in the shops sometimes. 

"So… does this scroll summon flowers?" Naruto asked hesitantly. He breathed a sigh of relief when Kurama beamed at him.

"Good! Yes, this scroll summons flowers. You wanna give it a try?" Naruto nodded excitedly.

He put his thumb to the scroll and felt a burst of chakra leave his body and go into the scroll. In a puff of smoke, dozens of small flowers poured out all over the two, and Naruto burst out laughing.

"This is great! I can turn this in for the project tomorrow! Thank you, Kurama!" Naruto said, jumping on Kurama for a hug. He nearly jerked back, remembering times when adults refused to even bump him on a busy street, but Kurama immediately enveloped him in those long sleeves and Naruto relaxed happily. 

"Oh, but do you know what would be even cooler?" Naruto shook his head, eyes wide with excitement. Kurama's grin turned mischievous.

"If you could make this seal."

~~~~~~~

Naruto and Sasuke were both buzzing with excitement, the first time they boys had looked forward to a project. The older ninja had all lined up outside behind their younger counterparts, and even the head of the Hyuuga clan was there! Naruto caught Hinata's eye and grinned at her. The shy girl was always fairly nice to him.

Sasuke impressed the whole crowd with his fireball jutsu, and thankfully Iruka-sensei didn't take away points for not having a mentor. Sasuke high-fived Naruto on the way back, a sharp, challenging grin on his face. Naruto grinned back and bounded forward into the open field, taking out his tools. 

Kurama had given him a brush, some ink, and a scroll. They had practiced the seal all day, and now Naruto could for once say he was confident in this jutsu. Fuinjutsu Kurama had called it. Naruto opened the scroll and set to work, recalling the red haired man's instructions.

First, draw your spiral in the middle of the paper. This is where your chakra will enter the jutsu, and the spiral will then spread it out to all of the components of the seal. This seal doesn't need a lot of chakra, so you can make the spiral small.

Naruto carefully dipped his brush in the ink and slowly drew the spiral. He sensed hostility from somewhere behind him, but put it out of his mind. He had to focus or the fuinjutsu would fall apart.

Next, draw your flowers. If you want specific flowers then draw them, but any generic one will do. So long as you can read it, it will work. Though, if you go into more complicated fuinjutsu, then precision is everything. 

Naruto's heart was beating from excitement. This kind of jutsu was actually fun! After drawing a few flowers, then he could summon them in real life! And it wouldn't mess up like most ninjutsu did! He would definitely be giving a few to Sasuke, and maybe some for Hinata since she didn't look too happy today. Oh, and Sakura too! She always liked flowers. Just a few more and-

Naruto grunted in pain, brush clattering out of his hand and then smashing under someone's knee. The someone was shoving his face into the dirt, and had twisted his arm back to the point of pain. Naruto heard Sasuke scream, but it sounded so distant compared to her sickening pop that came from his shoulder. He tried to turn to see if the black haired boy was alright, but the hand on his face pressed him further into the dirt, and Naruto was sure we would sooner turn into dirt than the person holding him down be satisfied. 

Naruto tried squirming out of the grip, panting and confused. Were they being attacked? But he didn't hear any sounds of battle going on. Just Iruka-sensei's panicked voice and Sasuke's outraged one. Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto saw the ink spilling, thankfully missing the paper, but Naruto knew how expensive ink was. He'd been counting on that ink to last him a long time. 

Suddenly, Sasuke appeared in his view, collecting the ink and scroll and even the shattered remains of the brush, not paying attention to the wood splinters and ink that was splattering all over his clothes. Naruto wanted to protest, say the ink wasn't worth ruining his clothes, but the hand painfully slammed his face into the dirt again, and a rough voice growled above him.

"Stop moving, you are already on thin ice. I will kill you right here if you squirm again." The voice growled, painfully squeezing his face for emphasis. Sasuke did not take kindly to it and readied a jutsu, clearly aiming for the figure above him, but before he could do anything, someone appeared behind him and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Maa, sorry I'm late. What is going on here?" The man said, sounding bored. He had a head of silver hair, and his face was obscured by a wolf ANBU mask. He was wearing a white cloak with mud lining the bottom and splashes of red across the front. He had a sword strapped to his back, just visible out of the cloak. Despite his calm demeanor, it was obvious that the man had rushed over as fast as he could. The voice in his head, which sounded suspiciously like Kurama, had been growling and roaring in the back of his mind, but quieted down at the sight of the man.

"You're a day late Kakashi. Got distracted on the way here?" The voice above him sneered, fingers digging into Naruto's face. The man, Kakashi, only tilted his head.

"Well, despite my tardiness, I would like to know why you're crushing a 5 year old into the dirt." He said, a hard edge to his voice. Naruto could sense a growing anger in the silver haired man, dangerous and deadly. The very temperature around the ANBU man had dropped significantly, and dark clouds were gathering in the sky. Naruto didn't know what sort of god had decided to come down from the heavens, but he hoped it was on his side. The man above him was not as impressed.

"Did you expect me to let this monster finish a dangerous seal? Who knows where this thing got that jutsu from. I'm willing to bet it could destroy half the village." Naruto would have flinched if the paralyzing fear that he would die hadn't still gripped him. The blond almost flinched as the anger coming off of the fox-masked ANBU rose exponentially. He felt a knee dig hard into his back.

"Oh? How much are you betting then? Surely, Hiashi, you did not forget that I not only studied fuinjutsu under the fourth hokage, but also under the only remaining Uzushio kunoichi in Konoha?" The masked man said, quiet rage behind his words. The word 'Uzushio' rang a bell, but Naruto was too caught up in the pain and adrenaline to put two and two together. Naruto felt the man trapping him still, and heard a muttered curse.

"Well, let's see. In the first place, this scroll is too small to contain anything that could destroy half a village, especially not from a five year old. Ah-ah, I'm not done. This spiral in the center is too small to take any more than the amount of chakra to summon one clone. And that's pushing it. Now, you see these designs surrounding the spiral? Really sinister, yeah? No. This scroll summons flowers." Kakashi said, voice shaking with such rage, Naruto wasn't sure how the man hadn't already slaughtered the person on top of him- Hiashi his name was. 

It didn't stop there. Kakashi moved faster than Naruto could see and booted Hiashi off of the blond. Sasuke immediately rushed over and helped Naruto up, gasping when he saw the boy's face.

"Naruto, you're bleeding! And your arm…" Naruto followed Sasuke's gaze and saw dark bruises going almost entirely up his arm and likely continued under his shirt. He felt a sharp, throbbing pain on his right ribs, and his nose was pulsing awfully too. He felt beaten. He was beaten. All over a few flowers. Sasuke's expression hardened, anger contorting his face, but before he could do anything, Kakashi turned to the two boys and began herding them out of the school yard. 

Naruto tried taking a few steps, but his legs failed him. Sasuke managed to catch his arm, but the silver haired man simply picked them both up and began a slow jog in the direction of the hospital. Naruto fought to stay awake, but the exhaustion from the adrenaline rush quickly took over, and Naruto fell asleep in ice cold arms.

~~~~~

Naruto awoke to snow and darkness. It was so cold, wherever he was, that the very air itself seemed to stand still. There was a small window in the room, letting in a dull silver light. The light was obscured by the raging blizzard outside, and something in the back of Naruto's mind found it strange that he couldn't hear the roaring winds.

As Naruto slowly came to awareness, he began to slowly be aware of his pain as well. There were some sort of wrappings around his face, covering a dull throb in his nose. There were some bandages wrapped around his waist too, the same dull pain in his ribs, and his arm seemed to have some sort of cream on it and it felt really sore. Everything was ice cold, everything except his legs under the blanket and the two people beside him.

Sasuke was on his right, and that was a good sign. Sasuke wouldn't sleep somewhere that was dangerous. It was a talent, Naruto supposed. Sasuke looked serene when he was sleeping, holding onto Naruto like a teddy bear. The wolf ANBU was on his left, though he was awake. He'd been watching the blizzard the same as Naruto, but now his gaze was fixed on the blond boy. He didn't look that old at all in the moonlight.

"Are you going to apologize?" Naruto asked, voice weak and hoarse. Kakashi tilted his head, dull curiosity in his pitch black eye.

"Do people usually apologize when they watch you get hurt?" He asked, voice soft. Naruto shrugged.

"Some of them do. If they don't, then they go on to hurt me too." It was a handy little way to predict which adults he should avoid. It was hard yet the easiest thing in the world to avoid an entire village.

"Then I'm sorry. I have no intention of hurting you." He said, sad expression on his pale face. Naruto breathed a sigh of relief. 

"Thank you for letting us stay here. Even if it's kinda cold." He said, trying to crack a smile. Kakashi chuckled softly, and pulled the blanket further up so it covered most of Naruto. Then he settled down, wrapping a strong arm over both boys.

"Go to sleep, Naruto. You too, Sasuke. I'm gonna do what I should have done and look after you now, so don't worry." Kakashi said, voice soft and loving. Sasuke huffed, annoyed that he'd been caught, yet snuggled closer anyway.

For a moment, Naruto felt his loneliness fade, if only a little.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm crying. Thanks, me. The second work of In the Snowfields, featuring baby Naruto and babey Sasuke. Flowers really do cost too much, don't they? Comments are always appreciated! See you next time.


End file.
